Weekend Gateway From Hyderabad :: Srisailam Part-2

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

There was a small covering on Srisailam about two paragraphs in a leading newspaper stating that authority had opened two gates during the last two days.During our last visit we could not get the gates opened. We ended up with a dry visit!!. Please refer here for our first visit. Also during with the chitchat with my manager cum friend Sreekar from my organization yielded that it could be a better visit this time as the gates were opened. Accordingly, Friday night I had to convince my wife for this weekend trip. We packed our bag quickly and were ready for our next day visit. The cherry on the top was to have my in-laws who joined  this trip. It was a best option to see Lord Mallikarjuna.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Srisailam is a temple town deep inside Nallamalla forest on the bank of river Krishna in kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.It is 235 KM away from Hitechcity via ORR.

Next day, (14th Oct’2017), we started at 8AM. We reached HP diesel bunk for topping up diesel. at around 8:30 AM we hit the Neheru Outer Ring Road(ORR). At around 9AM we reached exit 19 and met Srisailam highway.After driving around 10 KMs , we were surprised to see the road condition. It had improved drastically over last 3 years. Clear sign of diversions, bumps and village made our driving joyful.

The road was wide , two ways with

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Newly laid tars made our journey pleasurable. On top of this there were numbers of dhabas to have food. We stopped for a Dhaba for a cup of tea before kalwakurthy. Unfortunately the dhaba was closed but tea section was opened. We took 2 cups of tea. The toilet facility was clean. We had not faced any issue so far with two elderly people . Keeping my last visit in mind, I was cruising at 60-70 KM/hr.

Just before kalwakurthy, We stopped for the major break at Food Village. We had puri and some sweet flavored milk. This hotel was having great ambiance,staff and again neat and clean toilet facility. They had ample of parking. On top this the price was real cheap. Hats off to the owner.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Our next destination was Dindi dam. At kalwakurthy junction, the road was broadened along with clear signboard towords Srisailam. There was no way a driver could make mistake now. I remembered that three years back it was so narrow I left this turning and went to wards Devkarna to Bangalore highway. Once we crossed kalwakurthy junction, the road became almost empty. The journey became a breeze in the lap of mother nature with light or no traffic .Due to Dindi’d height my in-lays refused to climb to Dindi. As we have already ventured Dindi last time. We continued our journey.

I completely forgot the road towards the hotel. My wife came to rescue us. After a little difficulties we got the hotrel. We got 2 A/C rooms in top floor. The view was awesome. We rested for sometimes. At evening we went for Srisailam market for some shopping.

 Lord Mallikajurna temple-Night View. The temple looked gorgeous and is a symbol of ancient sculpture.

The main gate of Lord Mallikarjuna.

 During shopping we ate at A1 hotel. It was a great canteen in the heart of the market.Dosa was great. We tasted the aloo bhaji and tea as well.At 10PM we started our return journey to the hotel. At 10:30PM we cam back to hotel.

Being Sunday, people came to see the beauty. It was a huge rush.Locals and police tried their level best to clear the traffic. At around 5PM we finally crossed the Srisailam and stopped for tea at Rajdhani dhaba, just outside of Srisailam. There were light traffic at jungle and we crossed it within 45 mins. We stopped for tea and some snacks at the gate of the jungle.

We stopped at famous patalganga ghat for this nice snap.

Again the road was scenic and treat to the eyes.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Govt had setup a beautiful Sulabh complex toilet facility here. All were clean. It was really an excellent move by govt and local. There were lots of food stalls .We used the sulabh complex(Rate was Rs5/head) and came to know that there was a guest house too just for night stay.We took freshly fried aloo bhaji and puffed rice. Later we took freshly made tea too.Oh!! i must say this area was highly invested with monkeys So be careful with your food . We headed towards Hyderabad.
Rest of the journey was very normal. The beautiful road took us home safely at 9PM. It was indeed a joyful journey.

1. With improved roads lots of dhabas and hotel opened with great basic facilities.
2. The jungle once being an empty area was full of tourists . So no where we felt that we were alone. One way good but the bad point was the silence and beauty of the jungle really were missing. Which we experienced during our bike ride.
3. While tourists were having fun, picnic,selfies with jungle they left behind plastics,garbage and uneaten food. That was a pure eyeshore.
4. The lush green thick forest became less dense with the advancement of human .
5. People became more business oriented , we never ever experienced the human touch.  I remembered last time it was remote but people valued us. They offered tea,shelters,does and don’ts,route map with their very little hindi knowledge.(Google map was not that advanced last time). More and more technology got advanced , Sadly but truly we moved away from each other.
6. While both the govt had put lots of effort to make the way better, we the careless drivers made the journey bad to worse. I remembered that some of the arrogant drivers were never following the traffic rules. They were wrong routing , tried all possible ways to go ahead of the traffic violating the drive rule in ghat. That made the on coming traffic standstill and created a chaos . I must say we never experienced this during our dapoli visit that was allmost 150 KM ghat section. I request all my blog readers to follow the traffic rules.
7. The remoteness, emptiness of the road was completely removed. Not sure if the new bikes will enjoy the journey or not.
8. There was online ticket available for darshan, please use that facility. Trust me that will surely save huge time for you.
9. Being a small town , it is well connected with Auto. So you can take hotel anywhere of the town. But I suggest to take hotel near to main temple.
10. It is always better to hire a local auto for local site visit. The reasons being they know the route condition ,shortcuts better than us.